


Kiss meme - Frustrated

by Asuka Kureru (Askerian)



Category: Seirei no Moribito | Guardian of the Sacred Spirit
Genre: Age Difference, Crushes, F/M, Jin is a bit of a mess, Sparring, Surprise Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-26
Updated: 2009-04-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 07:25:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11916021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru
Summary: Archiving old fics.--Jin ground his teeth together, narrowed his eyes threateningly, and placed a hand on his sword in a ready-to-draw gesture that had broken the nerve of many a would-be opponent.Balsa took another sip of tea."He'll be back when he gets back," she said, throwing him an unimpressed, heavy-lidded look over the rim of her cup."You are hiding the Prince," Jin said, biting out ever word.Anything he could have added after that fell flat, though -- 'Talk or I'll kill you' ? She didn't need the favor of Prince Chagum to protect her. 'I will have you arrested' ? Only if they managed to catch her."Feel free to search the house," Balsa offered, uncaring.Jin's hand clenched on the hilt of his sword. She sneaked him a sideways look from under long eyelashes. Her spear was propped up on the wall; she'd have the blade at his throat before he finished drawing and they both knew it."Sit down," she said. "Drink some tea."





	Kiss meme - Frustrated

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tephra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tephra/gifts).



> For Tephralynn. Jin/Balsa, frustrated.

Jin ground his teeth together, narrowed his eyes threateningly, and placed a hand on his sword in a ready-to-draw gesture that had broken the nerve of many a would-be opponent.

Balsa took another sip of tea.

"He'll be back when he gets back," she said, throwing him an unimpressed, heavy-lidded look over the rim of her cup.

"You are _hiding the Prince_ ," Jin said, biting out ever word.

Anything he could have added after that fell flat, though -- 'Talk or I'll kill you' ? She didn't need the favor of Prince Chagum to protect her. 'I will have you arrested' ? Only if they managed to catch her.

"Feel free to search the house," Balsa offered, uncaring.

Jin's hand clenched on the hilt of his sword. She sneaked him a sideways look from under long eyelashes. Her spear was propped up on the wall; she'd have the blade at his throat before he finished drawing and they both knew it.

"Sit down," she said. "Drink some tea."

Jin breathed through his nose, rather than letting his usually tightly controlled temper get the best of him -- because if he did then Balsa the Spearwielder would get the best of his temper and his pride both. Hard.

"I do _not_ want tea. I want to know--"

"--Where the prince is; I heard you the first time. I'd tell you if I knew," she said, looking both amused and resigned in about equal measures. "He didn't mention it. But he's with Touya and Saya; Chagum could probably talk Touya into just about anything, but Saya'll keep them both out of trouble, and if something happens anyway Touya will defend him."

Jin wasn't reassured. Of course almost no one would recognize Prince Chagum for who he was -- no assassin would expect him to be wandering the city in disguise as a peasant, and no one else would know him on sight since it was taboo for commoners to gaze upon the Imperial Family; but his quality shone through even the most grim of disguises, and he did not tolerate injustice. Those differences guaranteed trouble. At fourteen, the Prince was showing some promise in the arts of war, but he was still far from being a grown man. Jin would be dishonored if he came back with even one bruise, one trace of dirt on his fair skin.

He loved the Prince like he would love no one else, with a devotion that burned, and if he could die for Chagum's sake, being of use to him, he would say it was a life well-lived; but if half the things Jin wanted to tell the young man right this moment passed his lips he would probably have to cut off his own tongue.

Jin growled his frustration and let his hand fall from his sword. Balsa smiled faintly, a secretive smile that he was pretty sure mocked him in some way.

"Don't fret. He's safe enough."

"Safe _enough_ would be at the palace, locked up in his bedchamber," Jin muttered darkly.

Balsa chuckled. "Ah, it's no use trying to put the chick back in its shell. Jin... He's safe. And right now, he's happy."

Jin hesitated, poised on the balls of his feet. Balsa couldn't -- wouldn't -- help, so he'd been about to leave and start searching on his own.

She'd just said the only thing that could have stopped him.

He turned away, stared at the door he wasn't going to walk out of. "... You have good aim," he acknowledged quietly. With words or with weapons. It was an admirable quality -- admirable like a good blade, and often cutting just as deep.

"Thank you," she replied dryly. "Sit down," she invited again. "If you leave to look for him now you'll miss him coming back. You might as well stop looming while you're at it."

Jin's brow furrowed farther. "I am on duty."

"You're in my house."

Jin tensed up, shifted so his side was to her, his hand back onto his sword. There was a new tone to her words, like she was reaching the end of her willingness to tolerate his attitude. His skin tingled; his heart sped up.

Fighting against Balsa was always dangerous, and so far had always ended in a loss for him. But the rush of finding himself matched, of countering attacks he had never safely practiced, the drive to prove his skills, his worth...

Jin's life was not his own to gamble on a whim, and Balsa was a personal friend of the Prince, not to be challenged for the pleasure and the pride of seeing how far he had come. But if she challenged him first...

"I was going to ask if you want to spar to spend the time, but it seems pretty obvious that the answer is yes," she said, and smiled in that mysterious way again, laughing at him behind the veil of her eyelashes.

Jin stared at her for a second -- the pouty lips that couldn't distract from her clear, predatory gaze; the curves and the lean muscles and solid shoulders underneath; the callused, familiar grip on the shaft of the spear -- and then he nodded briefly.

Balsa abandoned her tea and walked out first, leading the way. He followed without a word.

They started out slow, warming up, a couple of testing prods here, a slightly too slow swipe there. Jin kept to his sword; if he pulled a throwing knife, things might escalate and the sheath on the spearhead fall off.

If she had smiled, he would have used the knives no matter how far it escalated everything; but she gave the match all her concentration and seriousness, and somewhere deep down he was glad, flattered.

Faster, then, though still conventional, still expected. Neither of them wanted to startle the other one. He could still tell her skill, though. He might win. Perhaps.

And she lunged and slashed; he jumped over the swipe and rolled. They clashed -- he pushed her back a few steps, but it was a feint and she whirled; blocking sent shocks up his arms. Faster and faster they went -- not training there, not long, tedious drilling, not a master-and-student match where she sought to correct his mistakes. That was good. Exciting. (Not life or death either, no grim determination, soul closed off, ready for another kill, and that was good in another way, a way that gave him leave to enjoy it.)

He saw she was grinning, then, feral and elated by the challenge and the game, by the edge of danger. He saw her grinning and realized he was, too. He didn't remember the last time he had delighted in his own abilities, the swiftness of his reflexes, the vital strength running through his body, the last time he had fought purely for the pleasure of it.

So. She charged, point first, and at the last second only did he move -- hooking the shaft of the spear with the curved guard of his blade and twisting, putting the strength of his shoulder and his whole weight in it.

Her spear was torn from her hand, clattered on the ground. Jin didn't have the time to bring his sword back up; she had already moved into his space. She stopped the hand-heel strike before she crushed his trachea, palm resting against his throat; they both stilled in common agreement. He was gratified to see she was breathing just as hard as he was.

Balsa was still smiling. "Good job," she said, and her voice was utterly devoid of condescending flattery -- it was approving and pleased and low and even oh-so-slightly like a purr.

He leaned forward into her hand, and he kissed her, lips open, with the barely restrained intensity of their fight. A line of fire burned along his side, where the spear had gouged him despite the blunted sheath during the last charge. Groaning, he nipped her lips, and grabbed her upper arm to pull her closer.

The hand she had on his throat tightened in warning, and he remembered himself, froze against her. She had never indicated that she would welcome his advances. She was a woman, well into her thirties; he was a young man. She -- respected him, surely, but not as an equal; he wasn't warrior enough yet.

He'd ruined it, hadn't he. He stared at her wordlessly. They stood barely a hand's span apart, too far for him. She was out of his league in all the ways possible and he knew that, had known it from the start.

She arched an eyebrow at him; he clenched his jaw. He had to apologize, but nothing would come that would have been sincere. He couldn't regret it.

Then she chuckled, low and knowing, amused. "I guess you deserved to have this one."

Her hand trailed off his throat, patted his cheek -- so fast it was over before he wrapped his mind around it.

"Next time let's not spar where Chagum can see it, hm?"

And as Jin blinked stupidly, his princely charge popped out of the barn loft he'd be spying from and marched up to them, shock and offense written all over his face.

" _Balsa_!"

"Chagum. It's time you went home, I think."

The heir of the Yogo empire stared at the Kanbal peasant. The Kanbal peasant stared back, unimpressed.

Something passed between them that Jin couldn't read. He waited off to the side, tense and deeply embarrassed, erasing as much of his presence as he could to keep from interfering in the silent contest of wills. His face was hot.

"Go home, Chagum. You know you can come back whenever you want, but you still need to go home now. Jin will get in trouble otherwise."

The prince drew breath for a comeback and glowered, then deflated slightly. "That isn't what I wanted to--"

"And, the rest isn't any of your business."

"But _Tanda_ ," Prince Chagum said plaintively. Jin flinched, aghast.

"There is -- the healer?" Balsa was looking at him. Jin -- oh. Oh. "Forgive me. I did not know. I wouldn't presume--"

"I'll tell you what you can and can't presume."

Chagum spluttered. "But--"

Balsa softened minutely, tapped the prince's nose with her pointer finger. "Tanda is Tanda. He's always going to be Tanda. And if I chose to take a concubine, you would be the last person who could say anything about it, my prince. By the way, how go the betrothal offers?"

Chagum cringed. Jin tried to make sense of Balsa's words. A _concubine_? Was she -- were they _married_ , then? Maybe a common law marriage, so frequent amongst the peasants --

... Concubine, though --

She turned to him and Jin stiffened from head to toe, knew he would not be loose and bendy enough to even fight properly right now, training driven out of his body with the shock.

"I said _if,_ " she said -- quietly, like a measure of privacy against Chagum's curious ears.

"... Yes. Of course. I... yes."

Jin did not understand _anything_ anymore.

"Go away now. Shoo. The both of you."

"Alright, alright!" the Prince said with a huff.

He sighed, squeezed Balsa's offered hand in goodbye, and went down the path that went closest to the palace grounds, waving over his shoulder. Jin trailed him in silence, unable to even glance back.

The prince was displeased with him. He wouldn't turn to look at Jin, wouldn't chatter like he usually did, in that inappropriately friendly way of his. Balsa had, after all, been his adoptive mother for a time -- Jin could understand being deemed unworthy. And if his prince disapproved, then... that would be it.

"If Your Highness doesn't want--"

"Oh, if Balsa decides she wants you, then I guess that's alright."

Jin blinked at the sudden careless acceptance, jarring after Chagum's earlier offense. "Your Highness?"

Chagum's voice darkened -- but not even in sincere threat, closer to teasing. Jin's throat closed up. "Just be nice to Tanda or I'll be cross with you."

"--Yes, your Highness." A pause, to gather his words. "Thank you, your Highness."

Chagum grinned at him over his shoulder, nothing like en Emperor-to-be, everything like the impish, bratty little brother that Jin had never had. "After all, it means more opportunities to visit for me!"

Jin opened his mouth. Closed it. Frowned, sternly. "... No, your Highness, it really doesn't."

"Aw, come on...!"

"My prince, I'm serious."

But Chagum was laughing.

After a minute, Jin let himself smile at his back.


End file.
